As of 7/7/20, an Economist/YouGov poll found that 42% of registered voters approved of the job that President Trump is doing as president while 57% disapprove. 39% of women approve of the job he is doing along with 44% of men, while 56% of women disapprove along with 54% of men.
The split between folks who see themselves as supporters of one party or the other could not be more clear. 84% of Republicans approve of the job he is doing while 15% disapprove. And, no surprise, 87% of Democrats disapprove of his performance while only 11% approve.
Among Independents, 36% approve of his performance and 55% disapprove.
An interesting dichotomy that this survey demonstrates is the role that age seems to play in levels of support for the president’s performance.
Among those between the ages of 18-29, 31% support the president’s performance while 63% disapprove.
Among those 65 and older, 52% approve of his performance and 45% disapprove.
Gallup now does monthly or semi-monthly surveys. WW will include a periodic polling summary–Registered and Likely Voters–by FiveThirtyEight.
| Gallup (all adults) | FiveThirtyEight (Registered / Likely voters) | |||
| Date | Approval | Dis-approval | Approval | Dis-approval |
| 6/30/20 | 38% | 57% | 40.3% | 56.4% |
| 6/4/20 | 39% | 57% | 41.6% | 53.9% |
| 5/13/20 | 49% | 48% | 43.6% | 51.9% |
| 4/14/20 | 45% | 54% | 44.4% | 51.4% |
| 3/22/20 | 49% | 45% | 43.2% | 52.1% |
| 2/16/20 | 49% | 48% | 43.4% | 52.2% |
| 1/15/20 | 44% | 53% | 42.4% | 53.0% |
| 1/27/19 | 37% | 59% | 40.4% | 55.6% |
The following are some additional looks at the President’s job performance. The numbers below are of Registered Voters unless followed by an “A” which means “all voters” or “L” which means “likely voters”.
| Date | NBC / WSJ | WP / ABC | CNN | FOX | QUINNIPIAC |
| JUNE ’20 | 45/53 | xx | 41/55 | 44/55 | 42/55 |
| MAY ’20 | xx | 45/53 | 46/51 | 44/54 | 42/53 |
| APR ’20 | 46/51 | xx | 44/53 | 49/49 | 45/51 |
| MAR ’20 | 46/51 | 49/47 | 45/52 | 48/51 | 41/54 |
| FEB ’20 | 47/50 | 46/42 | xx | xx | 43/53 |
| JAN ’20 | 46/51 | 47/50 | 45/51 | 45/54 | 43/52 |
| DEC ’19 | 44/54A | xx | 44/52 | 45/53 | 43/52 |
| JUL ’19 | 45/52 | 47/50 | xx | 46/51 | 40/54 |
The following are presidential job approval numbers from Gallup roughly 43 months into each president’s first term (Johnson is an exception). Since Gallup is no longer providing a steady stream of approval ratings, WW will use various other surveys to provide approval numbers on the current president when timely Gallup numbers are not available.
| Johnson | 74% (6/64)* |
| Eisenhower | 70% (7/56) |
| Nixon | 56% (6/72)* |
| Reagan | 52% (7/84) |
| Clinton | 58% (7/96) |
| GW Bush | 49% (7/04) |
| Ford | 45% (6/76)* |
| Obama | 46% (7/12) |
| Trump | 42% (7/20) – RCP Average |
| GHW Bush | 32% (7/92) |
| Carter | 33% (7/80) |
On economic policy, Trump’s approval ratings continue to be on an upward track.
| Approve | Disapprove | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 7/7/20 | 49% | 47% | Econ/YouGov RV |
| 6/23/20 | 52% | 43% | Econ/YouGov RV |
| 6/16/20 | 49% | 46% | Fox RV |
| 6/15/20 | 52% | 45% | Quinnipiac RV |
| 5/26/20 | 52% | 44% | Econ/YouGov RV |
| 4/14/20 | 51% | 44% | Econ/YouGov(RV) |
| 2/17/20 | 53% | 38% | NBC/WSJ (RV) |
| 1/12/20 | 57% | 38% | Quinnipiac |
| 1/1/19 | 47% | 46% | Econ/YouGov (RV) |
| 1/16/18 | 46% | 49% | NBC/WSJ |
On foreign policy, Trump’s approval ratings remain in negative territory.
| Approve | Disapprove | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 7/7/20 | 40% | 57% | Reuters (A) |
| 6/18/20 | 45% | 55% | Harris RV |
| 5/26/20 | 45% | 53% | Econ/YouGov (RV) |
| 4/5/20 | 42% | 46% | Pol/MornConsult(RV) |
| 2/18/20 | 46% | 49% | Econ/YouGov(RV) |
| 1/12/20 | 43% | 53% | Quinnipiac |
| 1/1/19 | 42% | 51% | Econ/YouGov (RV) |
| 1/16/18 | 36% | 60% | NBC/WSJ |
After having no major events since early March, the Trump campaign re-engaged on June 20 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The event was not successful by any standard. The fire department estimated that 6,200 people attended the event in the BOK center, a facility designed to hold 19,000 people. A plan to hold a small event outside the hall for the “overflow” had to be scrapped.
Attendees had to agree and acknowledge that there was an inherent risk of exposure to COVID-19, that they and any guests voluntarily assumed all risks related to exposure to COVID-19, and agree not to hold Donald J. Trump for President Inc, the rally site, or organizers “liable for any illness or injury.”
[NBCNews.com 6/11/20]
A second event scheduled for July 11th in Portsmouth, New Hampshire was canceled. The stated reason was that there was supposed to be inclement weather. (The weather was fine.) There were signs to suggest that the event might not be successful.
The Republican governor announced he would not attend and advised anyone at “high risk” to skip the event because of the COVID-19 virus. The Trump campaign advance team also found enthusiasm lacking.
The President held a rally in New Hampshire in February which was attended by 11,000 people. The governor attended and spoke. [NBC News 7/10/20 – WBUR 2/11/2020]
Trumpisms
President Trump says he will not sign off on more funding for the U.S. Postal Service unless it raises the price for delivering some packages – read “packages from Amazon.”
Why Amazon? The answer is easy.
Trump hates the Washington Post, often describing stories in its pages as “Fake News.” The Washington Post is owned by Jeff Bezos, personally. Bezos is also the founder, CEO, and largest individual shareholder in Amazon. [CNN]
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled 2-1 that President Donald Trump cannot use defense department money appropriated by Congress to build his wall on the southern border. [NBC News 6/26/20]
While signing an executive order on police brutality President Trump said “President Obama and Vice President Biden never tried to fix this…The reason they didn’t try is because they had no idea how to do it.”
According to the WP Fact Checker on 6/10/20, Trump’s statement was not true. After an uproar over police brutality in 2014, Obama took a number of steps in response including limiting the distribution of military-style gear to local police departments and pursuing consent decrees. The Trump administration rolled back many of these.
Facebook removed an ad from the Trump campaign that went after Antifa and leftist groups showing a prominent display of an inverted red triangle in a black outline, a symbol the Nazis used for political dissenters. [Axios PM 6/18/20]
Twitter took the rare step of appending a warning label to one of President Trump’s tweets after the company determined it violated its policies of manipulated media. The President tweeted a doctored version of a popular video …that showed two toddlers, one black and one white, hugging.
Twitter and Facebook both removed the video based on a complaint from the copyright owner of the original video. [WP 6/19/20]
Trump regularly claims that he passed the largest tax cuts and tax reforms in U.S. history. The Trump tax cut was nearly .09% of GDP. Ronald Reagan’s 1981 tax cut was 2.89% of GDP. Trump’s tax cut is in fact even smaller than Barack Obama’s tax cuts.
The president also states, “Our massive tax cuts provide tremendous relief for the middle class and small businesses.” Most of the benefits in the tax bill flowed to corporations and the wealthy. More than three-quarters of the $1.1 trillion in individual tax cuts will go to people who earn more than $200,000 in taxable income, amounting to 5% of all taxpayers. [WP 1/30/20]
During the unveiling of his police reform executive order, Trump claimed neither Obama nor Biden “even tried to fix this…because they had no idea of how to do it.”
In fact, Obama, the nation’s first black president, confronted race and racism and frequently took action to reform police and attempt to reduce bias in law enforcement. The Trump administration unraveled those changes.
In August 2017, Trump reversed an Obama policy that banned the military from selling surplus equipment to police departments, actions that Obama took after the killing of Michael Brown, 18, in Ferguson Missouri, in 2014.
And, in September 2017, the Justice Department said it would stop the Obama-era practice of investigating police departments and issue public reports about their failings. [NBCUniversal 6/17/20]
Attorney General Bill Barr contradicted Trump’s claims that he went into the White House bunker purely to do an inspection while protests were happening outside. “We were reacting to three days of extremely violent demonstrations right across from the White House,” Barr said on Fox News. “…Things were so bad that the Secret Service recommended that the president go down to the bunker…” [The Daily Beast.com 6/8/2020]
As of July 9, 2020, the Washington Post Fact Checker has recorded 20,055 false or misleading claims by Trump.
Judges Nominated and Confirmed to Date
Because the U.S. Senate remains in Republican hands and the filibuster is no more, the President can continue unchecked his goal of remaking the federal judiciary. The chart below reflects the number of Article III court judges appointed by all U.S. presidents since Jimmy Carter. The data below does not include the U.S. Court of International Trade to which Trump has had 2 judges confirmed.
| Total | Supreme Ct | Appeals Ct | District Ct | Int’l Trade | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trump – thru 6/30/20 | 200 | 2 | 53 | 143 | 2 |
| Obama – 8 years | 325 | 2 | 55 | 268 | |
| GW Bush – 8 years | 325 | 2 | 62 | 261 | |
| Clinton – 8 years | 373 | 2 | 66 | 305 | |
| GHW Bush – 4 years | 192 | 2 | 42 | 148 | |
| Reagan – 8 years | 376 | 3 | 83 | 290 | |
| Carter – 4 years | 259 | 0 | 56 | 203 |
There are currently several nominations awaiting Senate action, 43 seats in the District Courts and 1 seat on the Court of International Trade.
There are currently 71 vacancies on the U.S. District Courts.
[USCourts/Wikipedia/List of federal judges appointed by Donald Trump]
Disassembling
Previously, a Small Business Ethics Committee reviewed loans requests from members of Congress and federal officials or their relatives if they hold key roles in companies requesting loans. A rule approved by the Trump administration on April 13 suspended this ethics process as part of the $660 billion Paycheck Protection Program. [6/26/20 WP]
The Environmental Protection Agency finalized a rule on June 1, 2020 that curtails the rights of states, tribes and the pubic to object to federal permits for energy projects and other activities that could pollute waterways across the country.
The new rule would set a one-year deadline for states and tribes to certify or reject proposed projects – including pipelines, hydroelectric dams, and industrial plants – that could discharge pollution into area waterways. It also would limit any reviews to include only water quality impacts, based on a narrower definition that the Trump administration finalized last year. [WP 6/1/2020]
The Trump administration is turning legal immigrants into undocumented ones. The Congress, has not been told, that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has “scaled back the printing of documents already promised to immigrants – including green cards”, the IDs legal permanent residents must carry everywhere to prove they are in the United States lawfully.
Some 50,000 green cards and 75,000 other employment authorization documents promised to immigrants have not been printed. “Some of the missing green cards are for immigrants newly approved for permanent residency. [WP 7/9/20]
The President has issued an executive order (June 4) which instructs federal agencies to take advantage of emergency provisions in the National Environmental Policy Act and other laws that mandate environmental reviews for projects so that they can receive a green light quickly.
The order instructed department heads to look for construction opportunities and push forward. [Law 360 – 6/4/2020]
“President Trump signed a proclamation on Friday (June 5th) that opened the Atlantic Ocean’s only fully protected marine sanctuary to commercial fishing, dismissing the arguments that crab traps, fishing nets and lines dangling hooks can harm fish and whales.
“Fishing can fully resume at the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument of the coast of New England.” [WP 6/6/2020]
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos issued a regulation June 11, 2020, that officially bars millions of college students from pandemic relief grants. The rule narrows student eligibility for more than $6 billion in emergency grant aid set aside for college students in the stimulus package. It limits those who can participate in this program to students who can participate in federal student aid programs. It shuts out undocumented and international students, was well as those with defaulted student loans or minor drug convictions. [WP 6/11/2020]
The Trump administration finalized a rule that would remove nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people when it comes to health care and health insurance. This is one of many rules and regulations put forward by the Trump administration that defines “sex discrimination” as only applying when someone faces discrimination for being male or female, and does not protect people from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity and includes transgender people. [NPR 6/12/20]
“Hunters will soon be allowed to venture into national preserves in Alaska and engage in practices that conservation groups say are reprehensible: baiting hibernating bears from their dens with doughnuts to kill them and using artificial light such as headlamps to scurry into wolf dens to slaughter mother and her pups.”
This action also ends a five-year-old ban on the practices, “which also include shooting swimming caribou from a boat and targeting animals from airplanes and snowmobiles.” [WP 6/10/20]
The Trump administration has plans to allow for oil drilling in Florida waters after the November election. This is a politically explosive topic for the Sunshine State, where even many Republicans worry oil spills could devastate their tourism-based economy. [The Daily 2 6/11/2020]
The Justice and Homeland Security Departments have proposed rules that would make it harder for migrants to apply for asylum. The regulations would give the government more freedom to deem asylum applications “frivolous” and permanently bar applicants from winning protections. It would also make it such that most applicants are no longer entitled to full court proceedings. [WSJ/Morning Consult 6/11/20]
The DC Circuit has allowed the Trump administration to broaden the scope of fast-tracked deportation proceedings saying that the U.S. DHS has the “sole and unreviewable” discretion to make changes to expedited removals. [Law 360 6/20/20]
The President signed an Executive Order extending foreign-worker restrictions through the end of the year. The previous order blocked most people from receiving a permanent residency visa – or green card. Additionally, the new order prohibits visas for most guest workers who come to the U.S. for temporary or seasonal work with an exemption for farm workers and others. [Politico 6/22/20]